Juliet or Julius? Capulet or Caesar?
by Duck Life
Summary: When Henry and Jasper come home to learn that Maggie has killed herself, Henry doesn't believe it. With a grief-stricken Jasper trying to stop him, Henry digs deeper. Jaggie. Character Death... or is it? Please R&R!
1. Prologue

**A/N: Inspired by my retainer. (Yeah, that's such a clichéd Author's Note.)**

Sometimes it's hard to separate between tragedy and life. Sometimes when something monumental happens, it's hard to remember the events leading up to that event. Sometimes all you can recall is the awful drop in your stomach, not the normalcy of the moment before the world shattered. Memory and certainty are two different things, and there were times that Henry Griffin and Jasper Bartlett couldn't be sure whether they truly remembered that day at school or whether they knew they'd gone to school.

It doesn't really matter what day it was. Not a weekend or a holiday. It was just a mundane morning that two cousins tiredly walked into Smithson High and tried to survive another school day. Henry's infectious curiosity had been dormant for the past few days, but Jasper was worriedly anticipating another outbreak of mystery soon. They didn't make plans with Maggie after school because Jasper had to go to the orthodontist to get a new retainer (Henry had accidentally thrown his old one out), and Henry had insisted on coming with him.

"Why do you want to come?" said Jasper. "It'll be boring."

"I've never been to an orthodontist's office before," explained Henry. "Part of living with you and Uncle Bryan in America is so that I can gain new experiences."

"Because sitting in a waiting room is an extremely important experience," he muttered.

"Sarcasm?"

"Yes."

Sometimes Jasper theorized that, if Henry hadn't thrown away his retainer, if they'd studied with Maggie or something, the universe might have held itself together. Or maybe not- his universe had a way of crumbling no matter what.

When they got home, his dad was standing in the doorway. They swung open the door to encounter his solemn look. "Dad?" said Jasper, perplexed.

"Henry, Jasper, I'm so sorry," he whispered raggedly. Some sort of pain was echoing out of his weathered eyes- it looked more like pity than sorrow. "Maggie's father just called." Henry stiffened. "She committed suicide."


	2. Message in a Bottle

**A/N: Thinking about making a soundtrack/fic mix for this story. So far, I have "Hero" by Regina Spektor and "Keep Holding On" by Avril Lavigne. If you have any ideas for songs that fit the story, please review and tell me!**

When he was eight, Henry had been stolen by an ocean current while at the beach. He remembered struggling and gasping for breath as the waves came crashing down on him. Now, fighting a true tsunami, he felt foolish for ever having thought that was frightening.

Uncle Bryan had said she'd killed herself. Which meant she was dead. Which meant that she would never walk the halls of Smithson with them, never work at the museum again, never raise her hand in class again. He would never have to listen to another of hers and Jasper's arguments. Never again would she help him with homework. He would never again be persuaded to try one of her sickening tofu burgers. It was ironic that, now, he'd give anything for the stench of her poor excuse for food.

"Maggie." Jasper's mouth was dry, as were, miraculously, his eyes. "Maggie. Maggie. Maggie. Maggie." He kept saying her name, as if with each repetition he drummed her out of existence, because if she never existed he could never lose her. She could never make him feel like he'd been burnt to a crisp and then doused in icy vinegar.

"How?" As soon as he said it, Henry wished he could take back the word. He neither wanted nor needed to know details. It didn't matter, and knowing anything more was like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut.

"She hung herself," his uncle said, his creased face reflecting only tiredness. Jasper cringed visibly. "Boys, I know this is awful. I know how you feel." He paused, probably waiting for Jasper to contradict him. Jasper knew he was lying because it was so generic. If something bad happens, everybody automatically assumes that they understand. Nobody understood this. Something was exploding inside of him. Flaming debris embedded itself in his soul. "Colonel Winnock wants you two to go to his house. He said she left you a note."

_A note?_ thought Jasper. What had she intended to explain in a note? _Dear Jasper and Henry, Couldn't take the pressure. XOXO, Mags. _His gut twisted. Humor? Was that humor? He was cruel. Life was cruel. Life was cruel, but that was no reason to end it. No reason for her to end it.

_I can't take this, _thought Henry as he and Jasper walked out to the Smart Car. _I can't stand this. _Murder he could handle. It was always a mystery, and despite the tragedy it gave him something to think about. But suicide? He just couldn't wrap his head around it. Why would Maggie kill herself? She had a future. Her parents loved her. She had friends that loved her.

Jasper's hands were shaking against the steering wheel. "Let me drive," suggested Henry quietly. Without a word, Jasper slid out of the driver's seat and walked around the front of the car to the passenger's side. They exchanged seats and drove away in silence.

* * *

Mr. Winnock answered the door. He didn't look like he'd been crying, but he looked devastated. His lips formed the words, "Come in, boys," but he didn't make a sound. They ghosted through the doorway and followed him to the table, which was empty but for an ominous-looking unopened white envelope. While Henry remained standing, Jasper slipped into a chair and gripped the table, anger and loss pounding through him. Mr. Winnock stood on the opposite side of the table, looking down at the letter like he was baffled by it. "Why?" he said softly, looking up at Henry as if from a bottomless well.

"I don't know," he said with remorse. He was, at least, controlled. Calm. Jasper, on the other hand, wanted to rip the letter in front of him into a thousand pieces, because that would bring back Maggie. No suicide note, no suicide, right?

Henry reached out and took the envelope, cleanly peeling it open with his thumbnail. _She licked that, _Jasper couldn't help thinking. The thought gave him an insufferable pang. Henry pulled out a thin sheet of paper covered in Margaret Winnock's neat handwriting. "Should I read it out loud?"

"Sure," Jasper mumbled. If he tried to read it himself, he'd smear the writing with tears and he knew it. They were her words, and they had to be legible. They just had to be.

" '_Dear Henry and Jasper, Never in my life did I think I'd be leaving you two. Of all the people I've ever known, I trust you the most. This is because of me, not you. Don't forget to live even if I'm not. Eat, drink, laugh, love. And someday we'll all be together. Don't forget me. Love, Maggie_'."

CRACK! Jasper was on his feet, his head throbbing, standing beside a fist-sized hole in the wall. "Mr. Winnock, I'm so sorry," he began, flustered.

"That's- that's okay, Jasper," he said, seeming apathetic about the damage.

"Thanks for letting us come over," said Henry, folding up the letter. "We're so sorry."

"Was she happy today?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" said Henry.

"Did she have a good day at school?" he clarified.

"Yes," he said. "She was happy." Mr. Winnock stared at him for a long time.

"Thank-you," he whispered. They both knew what he meant. _Thank-you for making her last day a good one._

* * *

That night, Jasper sat in bed staring at the ceiling while Henry sat at their desk, poring over Maggie's letter. "Will you stop looking at that?" Jasper finally snapped.

"Why?" he asked, his brow furrowing.

"Because it's not real!" He sounded exasperated. "It isn't her, it's just a piece of paper." He seemed like he was trying to convince himself rather than Henry.

"It just doesn't seem like something she would write," explained Henry.

"Does killing herself seem like something she would do?" Jasper hissed. Eyes pricking with tears, he switched off his bedside lamp and crashed onto the pillow, yanking the covers up over his head. Henry frowned and returned to the letter, tracing the now-memorized lines with his fingertips.

_Dear Henry and Jasper, _

_Never in my life did I think I'd be leaving you two. Of all the people I've ever known, I trust you the most. This is because of me, not you. Don't forget to live even if I'm not. Eat, drink, laugh, love. And someday we'll all be together. Don't forget me._

_Love, Maggie_

It really wouldn't bring her back. He needed to get to sleep. Absently, Henry outlined all the capital letters and had begun shading in the o's when he noticed something. He read over the letter again.

_**D**__ear __**H**__enry and __**J**__asper, _

_**N**__ever in my life did __**I**__ think __**I**__'d be leaving you two. __**O**__f all the people __**I**__'ve ever known, __**I**__ trust you the most. __**T**__his is because of me, not you. __**D**__on't forget to live even if __**I**__'m not. __**E**__at, drink, laugh, love. __**A**__nd someday we'll all be together. __**D**__on't forget me. _

_**L**__ove, __**M**__aggie_

Something in the body of the letter had caught his eye. At the bottom of the page, he quickly scrawled down the first letter of each sentence.

**NOTDEAD**

"Jasper was right," he whispered to himself in awe. "It's _not _real."


	3. Invade with Pain

**A/N: Took a while to update, sorry, I haven't had much time since school started. I just sent a long character list to FF, including Hunter O'Herlihy, Whitney, and Tamba, so hopefully they'll show up soon. When Jasper and Maggie are passing notes:**

_**Jasper writes like this.**_

_Maggie writes like this. _

* * *

For one blissful second as Jasper awoke, his mind was blank and untroubled. He blinked, and the illusion dissolved. Maggie was dead. He felt that familiar jerk in his stomach. Groaning, he slammed the snooze button on his alarm clock and flipped the covers back over his head.

Contrarily, Henry woke up feeling determined and hopeful. Maggie had encoded some secret in her note. Whatever else it might mean, it definitely meant that something was going on, something other than just heart-wrenching loss.

He slid the letter across the table to his cousin as they ate breakfast. "Henry, don't-" Jasper protested.

"You have to see what I found," he whispered. The words stung- they reminded Jasper too much of a world before everything fell apart. "There's a message in this letter!"

"As opposed to most letters," he grumbled, bitingly sarcastic, nudging his soggy Cheerios with his spoon.

"Jasper, just look at it." He did, and nearly choked on his cereal. His mind was screaming at him to shove the paper away, to ignore it, while his stomach instantaneously untwisted and leapt toward his throat.

"Not dead," he read, masking his excitement. "It's probably just a coincidence." He passed it back to Henry, wishing he could believe as fully as his cousin. Henry was always optimistic, always hopeful. Sometimes, when the slightest unbalance could destroy you, hope was a dangerous thing.

"Well, I thought of that," he said. "But look at the second-to-last sentence: 'And someday we'll all be together.' Maggie's a grammar freak. She would never begin a sentence with 'And'-"

"-unless she needed it to begin with an 'A'," finished Jasper. Henry was right, Maggie was a grammar freak. He could remember passing a note with her a few days after Henry had arrived.

_Why is he listing countries?_

_**He's telling that girl where he's from.**_

_Don't end a sentence with a preposition. _

"You're right. She's trying to tell us she's not dead."

"But why did she-" Henry stopped talking when his Uncle Bryan walked into the kitchen.

"Morning, boys," he said. "Listen, are you two up for school today? Because you can stay home if you want to." Jasper looked horrified at the thought of missing school.

"We're okay, Uncle Bryan," said Henry.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell him about Maggie's hidden message?" Jasper asked on their way to school.

"Because Maggie said that she trusts us more than anyone else," his cousin replied. "For some reason, she wants only us to know."

"But…" The awful truth was sinking into his mind. This was impossible. "She can't be alive."

"There are ways of faking your death," said Henry. "When I lived in Uzbekistan, I had a mentor who was accused of stealing food from the market. He was hanged, but he attached the noose to a harness around his waist and survived."

"So what then? She's lying in some funeral home, pretending to be dead?"

"It's possible," Henry shrugged.

"Yeah, for you," he said. "Maggie can't temporarily die like you can." _She was never coming back. _

"What we need to do is get into her room." Jasper stared at him.

"Henry…"

"What?"

"This isn't an episode of CSI!"

"CSI?" He looked perplexed.

"Never mind," said Jasper. "It's just… you're acting like you don't care that Maggie's dead."

"I care," he said simply. "I care that she's alive and needs our help."

* * *

The day passed agonizingly slowly. News of Maggie's suicide must have gotten on Facebook, because the entire school seemed to know. Their reactions varied from speaking quietly or not at all around Henry and Jasper to coming up to them and hugging them. When teachers called roll, there was always an uncomfortable silence after Nick Wallace said, "Here." Jasper didn't even try to pay attention. He just sat with his head on his desk and imagined that the seat beside him wasn't empty.

When the final bell rang, Henry drove them to Maggie's house. "We're going now?" said Jasper.

"Nobody's home right now," said Henry.

"We're sneaking in?" he yelped.

"It's technically not sneaking if you use a key," reasoned Henry, extracting a rusty house key from a plant beside the front door.

After climbing the stairs, the first thing they saw was a discarded noose on the floor. Jasper was overcome with violent tremors. "I guess they haven't cleaned up in here yet," said Henry, walking into the room. Jasper followed him warily.

Her room looked normal. Her bed was made, her desk was obsessively compulsively organized, and her floor was clear, carpet vacuumed. The only thing out of place was her desk chair, lying sideways on the ground a few feet away from the door. Jasper started shaking again.

"We should check her aPod," suggested Henry, gesturing to Maggie's nightstand.

"iPod," Jasper muttered exasperatedly. He sunk onto her bed and disconnected the music device from its dock so he could pull it closer to him. "Why? You think she's trying to tell us something with a playlist? 'I'm Not Dead,' by Pink? 'Still Around,' by 3OH!3?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Never mind." He tapped the iPod on and scrolled through what she'd been listening to last- the album "Bodies and Minds" by Great Lake Swimmers. It was one of his favorites. He remembered letting her steal it from his music library and jokingly warning her that the government would be after her for gaining music illegally. Jasper tossed the iPod back on the bed and swiped at his eyes. They were dry. "Can we go now, Sherlock?"

Henry was rummaging through Maggie's backpack. "Look," he said, pulling out a notebook. He opened it somewhere near the middle, where a jagged edge of white paper extruded from the binding, the remnants of a torn page. He took out Maggie's note and fit it into the notebook. "This is where she must have gotten the paper. But look at these others." He flipped back a few pages, pointing to places where Maggie had neatly and carefully peeled out the paper along the previously creased lines. "She must have been in a hurry when she wrote the suicide note."

Suddenly, the front door banged open. "It's Colonel Winnock," whispered Henry. "Hide!" He dropped the notebook back into her backpack and pulled Jasper into Maggie's closet, quickly and quietly sliding the door shut. A moment later, they heard heavy footsteps thundering up the stairs, and the creak of Maggie's bedroom door. Jasper leaned over his cousin to peek through the crack between the door and the doorjamb. The man was not Maggie's father. The stranger grabbed Maggie's iPod from the bed, pocketed it, and left.

The front door slammed shut.

* * *

**A/N: If you're wondering, I chose "Bodies and Minds" because Jasper is listening to that song in a scene in "Curse of the Rolling Stone." **


	4. Learn to Survive

They listened as a car pulled out of the driveway and drove away. The house was silent. Henry and Jasper came out of the closet. **(That was for you, Jenry fans!) **"Why did he take her iPod?" pondered Henry, sitting on the bed with a scrutinizing expression.

"Maybe he wants all her Sara Bareilles music," said Jasper. Henry rolled his eyes and leaned back.

"Something's not right," he said, staring at the ceiling. It was decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars organized into the constellations.

"Henry, nothing is right," he corrected, sighing and allowing the truth to sting him once more. Strangely, it hurt less this time, as if on some level he knew it wasn't true. His naïve cousin was beginning to convince him, but the idea of hope, of wishing that there was some way he could ever see Maggie again, terrified him.

"No, I mean something is _really _not right," he said vaguely. "Like fish."

"Fishy," corrected Jasper. "Something's fishy." There was no doubt about it- he agreed with Henry. He was actually beginning to think that his friend's supposed suicide had been just that- supposed. Faked. Set up.

But why?

* * *

The next day at school was easier and harder than yesterday. Easier, because the shock of Maggie's death seemed to have softened and settled down for the schools. Students began to treat Henry and Jasper normally, and teachers were quicker to recover at the end of roll call. Harder, because Jasper was battling with himself over whether or not to give in to optimism. There was a large part of him that wanted to, that recognized how euphoric it made him to consider that Maggie was not gone. However, he also knew that realizing false hope was indeed false could be worse than discovering that she was dead the first time. It was like a drug- he wanted it, knew it would temporarily cheer him, but he was also sure that, in the end, he would wish he hadn't ever wished for a happy ending. In real life, there were no happy endings, and the greatest salvation one could expect was a peaceful death as opposed to a painful one.

He'd seen Henry mouthing the names of deities when he meditated, and he'd even noticed him pick up the worn edition of the Bible kept under the coffee table. It made him wonder if there were times when Henry truly doubted his firm belief that Maggie was still alive, and that he'd decided to at least believe that she was in Heaven.

Jasper had been an atheist for as long as he could remember, and he didn't intend on converting to any sort of religion now that he'd lost someone important to him. It only proved that there was no God to save her. If she was really gone, he knew she wasn't coming back. There were no such things as miracles.

* * *

After school, Jasper followed Henry to his shift in the DOUM rooms. "They'll probably let you off today," he said. "You know, due to your grief."

"I'm not grieving," Henry said with determination. "And I didn't come here to work. Maggie was in here the day she disappeared."

"_Disappeared_," Jasper grumbled under his breath. Henry was in denial, and it was interfering with Jasper's moping.

"Look," said Henry immediately upon entering the department, pointing to a sheet of paper left on the desk. "It's her science homework. She would never forget or leave homework anywhere."

"Unless she didn't plan on being there to turn it in," he mumbled. Henry shot him an apologetic glance.

"She wrote something in the margins," observed Henry, leaning close to the surface of the desk and examining the paper carefully. "Does Maggie doodle a lot?"

"Uh…" Jasper thought back to classes he'd had with Maggie, half-wishing Henry would quit talking about her in the present tense. "No, I don't think so. She was always paying attention to the teacher."

"Huh." He traced the scribbles with his finger. " 'Perfect. Perfect. Feel nothing, feel anything.' "

"That sounds suicidal," said Jasper, trying to look at the situation clinically and without cringing upon hearing the words that must have been running through Maggie's head.

"Yeah, but-" He paused and straightened.

"What is it?"

"Shh!" Henry backed slowly away from the table and edged around a nearby shelf. "Someone's in here," he whispered. Jasper held his breath, peering around the shelf as Henry tip-toed down the aisle. Something clattered to the floor in the back, and a dark figure spurted past them and towards the door.

"Hey!" yelled Jasper. Henry was already at the door, but the stranger had escaped. "Get him!" Henry sprinted out the door, head bent, the same glint of resolve in his eyes that had been there since he'd decoded Maggie's letter.


	5. Locked in a Cell

Jasper dashed out the door behind Henry and watched as his cousin leapt over a display and swiftly turned a corner, nearly on the heels of his quarry. The man was wearing tinted sunglasses, heavy black pants and a thick black jacket that slipped out of Henry's grasp when he tried to grab at the stranger. They threaded through exhibits and museum-goers while Jasper skirted their running forms, not even bothering to try to keep up with them but trying to keep them in sight. People were scattering as they approached. In the distance a woman screamed.

Suddenly, the man stopped running. Henry prepared to spring at him, but as he crouched, the man spun around brandishing a pistol. "Henry, move!" yelled Jasper. He just stood there, sweat rolling down his forehead, panting from exertion. He stared at the gun, reflecting sullenly that he was all too familiar with this perspective of the weapon. It seemed almost that every other day he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. It could be worse, though. Detesting the things, he dreaded ever finding himself with a finger on the trigger.

Sighing with more exasperation than fear, he quickly pivoted and swung his left foot up in the air. He felt it connect with the gun and kicked hard, knocking the man's hands backward. As his leg came back down to the ground, though, he realized his mistake. He'd propelled the gun upward instead of away, and it had simply soared up and over the man's head. He caught it with his other hand.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you were a vicious and desperate villain intent on killing Henry Griffin), people were beginning to notice the scene going on between Henry and the man with the gun. He swore under his breath, tucked the gun back into his jacket, and sneered at Henry as he backed away. Breathless, Henry neglected to follow him as he ran out of the museum door.

"He got away," groaned Jasper approaching his cousin, wondering for what insane reason he had a sly grin on his face.

"Yeah…" said Henry, "without his cell phone." He knelt to the floor and collected the item he'd toed out of the stranger's pocket while the gun had been flying through the air. He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket as Jasper gripped his elbow and began to lead him away.

"We should go," he warned, "people are starting to stare." Swiftly, they exited the museum and began walking towards the parking lot.

* * *

Later that evening, Henry sat slouched in his hammock, fumbling irritably with the cell phone while Jasper lay sprawled on his bed, pretending to do his math homework. "There's probably tons of information on this phone," complained Henry, "but it's locked."

"Give me that," Jasper grumbled, slamming his textbook shut and reaching for the phone. "It's not even really locked, it's just a butt-dial prevention."

"A what?" Henry asked, staring at him.

"Never mind," he said, tapping the number keys. "See, it's just 'pound' and 'Unlock'."

"That's what I was trying to do, pound it unlocked," he said, still perplexed.

"Just leave all the electronic stuff to me," he muttered, sitting up. "Let's see, recent calls…" He found it calming to talk to himself, and it helped him to hear everything out loud. It made information easier to organize. Plus, talking kept him out of his head, which was always filled with doubt and pain and Maggie. "Joe, Brooks, Anthony, Joe again… this doesn't tell us anything."

"You could try calling those people," Henry suggested.

"Great plan," he said sarcastically, looking up from the phone. " 'Hi, we've stolen your criminal colleague's phone, and we'd like to know where and when you next plan to victimize us.' "

"Well, how do you expect us to get answers?" Henry asked.

"You've got a point," admitted Jasper. "All of his contacts are simple names, nothing like 'Boss' or 'Evil League of Evil'. So how…" His face lit up. "Texts!" Jasper bent industriously over the device, his thumbs whirling. The bright blue light shining off the screen dimly lit up his face and threw his weary eyes and haggard expression into focus. Yet, despite his obvious exhaustion, there was something feverishly alert within him, something too jerky about his movements. Henry glanced at the side table to see Jasper's eighth cup of coffee that night.

"You really shouldn't be drinking that much caffeine," he scolded.

"Never mind that," Jasper shrugged with a wave of his hand. "Check this out. His most recently received text is directions to and through the museum. And the one before that…" He brushed the buttons downward. " 'Blond, average height, usually carrying a brown leather messenger bag; Brown-haired, tall, brown eyes.' "

"That's a description of us," gasped Henry. "But from who?"

"We could be being followed," said Jasper. He seemed oddly indifferent, however, about the possibility of a stalker.

"Or maybe they got it out of Maggie," said Henry. Jasper glared at him, lip curling against the spasms of pain radiating throughout his chest.

He yawned. "All his other texts have been deleted." He tossed the phone onto his side table and burrowed under his covers, switching off the light. He was silent for a while, and then Henry heard his quiet snoring. Stepping carefully to avoid waking him, he walked across the room and retrieved the phone. He sat awake for a long time in his hammock, turning it over and over in his hand.


	6. Misguided Spektors

_Maggie was calling his name, her voice strangely contorted as if she were speaking through a long tube. "Jasper!" He looked around, but he couldn't see her. _

"_Maggie?" he said, looking up. "Maggie, where are you?"_

"_I can't tell you," she whispered. He jumped and looked behind him, but she wasn't there. "I'm alive."_

"_Yeah, that's what Henry says," he muttered skeptically. _

"_You should listen to him." For an instant, she was standing in front of him, whole and smiling and alive._

In the next second she was replaced by Henry. "Jasper!" With a strangled cry, he sat up, his hand shooting out towards Henry. Henry caught it reflexively and lowered it to bed. "Shhh!" He stopped struggling and situated himself against the headboard.

"Why did you wake me up?" he hissed.

"What were you dreaming about?" he asked, ignoring Jasper.

"I… I don't remember," he said, looking away. Henry watched him sorrowfully.

"I just remembered- tomorrow's Maggie's funeral," he said.

"Fantastic." Jasper tried to inch back under his covers, but Henry grabbed his wrist.

"That means tonight is our only chance of breaking into that casket!" Jasper stared at him, grasping the meaning of what he was saying. He thought about Maggie, and the threads of his dream that were still dancing about his consciousness. He thought about the suffocating agony and the miserable, pessimistic perspective through which he now saw the world. He thought about the spark of adventure that Henry had ignited, and the maelstrom the last few days had been.

"No, Henry."

"What?"

"I said no!" He was sitting up again, rasping for breath, feeling the blood pounding behind his ears. "I'm done, okay? I don't want to pore over her suicide note, or sort through some stranger's texts, or break into her coffin! That's your thing, not mine. You can keep following this insane trail of denial, but _I _know where it's going to get you." Despite Jasper's outburst, Henry was looking at him not with surprise or anger, but with pity.

"Then I guess I'll see you later," he said, striding across the room and disappearing out the window.

Alone in his room, Jasper Bartlett let his carefully constructed walls down and finally, _finally_, began to cry.

* * *

Henry reached the funeral home in twenty-three minutes running. He'd brought his chopsticks with him, but he didn't need them. Death itself, he realized as he opened the door, was enough of a lock- a lock he'd picked long before falling on top of his godfather's dead body. He slipped silently into the dark house and descended the rickety stairs to the morgue.

A depressing array of decorative caskets lined the wall to his left. He tip-toed forward and hefted open the first, a gleaming white marble one. Inside it lay the body of an old woman, her hands folded across her chest. Henry shut the lid as gently as possible, his shoulders shaking. He'd heard stories of grave-robbers when he lived in Egypt, and now he felt violating as they. It made him sick to think of looking upon corpses he'd never known, but he had to know the truth.

He tried three more coffins before he found hers. As he opened it, he wondered what he'd been expecting- Maggie hiding, pretending to be dead; a large Maggie-like sack full of straw. Not this. There she was, in one of her best skirts and a blouse, her hair combed back, a serene smile on her lips. He didn't bother checking for a pulse to see if she was faking it- he knew she was dead. She was so pale, so still.

Jasper was right. He'd been right all along, but Henry had been too stubborn, too incessantly naïve to realize it. He cursed himself and his incurable optimism, and felt his soul slide down the somewhere around his ankles. A solitary tear dripped off the tip of his nose and plummeted into the casket, landing on her forearm. It rolled off the side of her arm and fell into a crease in her blouse, staining it darker purple, leaving a straight, clear line on her arm that reflected the moonlight spilling in from a high window. Henry stared.

A straight, clear line.

The tears had kept coming, so he bent his head over his own arm and watched them trail across his skin. The tracks of tears zigzagged between the hairs on his arms, spilling out into several crooked streams. He looked back to Maggie's arm, where the perfectly straight tear track was slowly drying. He peered closer- nothing. Her arm was smooth. What had she done, he wondered, shaved her arms?

Denying his apprehension, a victim to the poisonous curiosity that dragged him forward, he ran his fingers down to her hand and flipped it over. No fingerprints. As he stepped back and observed her once again, he began to notice the tiny irregularities- the roots of her hair seemed slightly off, her eyelashes too short, her ankles protruding from the skirt too jagged, the bones jutting out oddly. It was a fake- some kind of mannequin. It didn't even really look like Maggie.

Henry stepped back, closing the coffin. Looking out the tiny window, he took a deep breath, and his entire world shifted.

* * *

Curled in the corner of her cramped cell, Maggie Winnock scrolled through the iPod one of her more compassionate capturers had retrieved for her. She selected "Hero," by Regina Spektor, and nudged her earphones further into her ears.

_I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved.  
I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved.  
I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved._

She wished she didn't need to be saved. She wished she could find her own way to escape- that was what Henry would do. But she did need to be rescued. She had faith in Henry and Jasper, but she knew that soon enough, that faith would run out. And then what?

* * *

Miles away, Jasper was listening to the same song.

_He never ever saw it coming at all.  
He never ever saw it coming at all.  
He never ever saw it coming at all._

He wished he'd seen it coming. Maybe then it would have hurt less. On the other hand, suspicion and agonizing expectation would have tortured him. But Maggie was such a cheerful person, the last one he'd ever thought might kill herself. Then again, it's always what you don't expect.

* * *

_It's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright._


	7. Breathing Through the Blackness

Jasper stood and stretched, glancing at the clock. It was past midnight, and Henry wasn't back yet. He wondered what condition he would be in when he did get back- he'd opened her casket and looked upon her in eternal sleep. Even for someone like Henry, that had to do some emotional damage. He glanced at the empty mug on his nightstand and considered brewing another pot, but something told him he needed something different, something more effective.

Sagged down by tiredness, he stepped out into the hallway and padded down the stairs to his dad's office. He was half-fighting, half-wishing to be consumed by the urge to go back upstairs, crawl into bed, and fall asleep. He kept walking, and didn't stop until he was kneeling in front of the bottom drawer of Bryan Bartlett's desk. He slid it out as far as it would go and reached into the very back corner, feeling around with his finger until he found what he was looking for- a small, rectangular box and a slightly flattened plastic cylinder.

He carried the items gingerly in his left hand and ghosted back upstairs, locking himself in the bathroom. He paced across the cold linoleum and sank to the floor beneath the window, leaning back against the wall. He held out the objects he'd retrieved from his father's drawer: a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. His dad had taken up smoking after Jasper's mother had died, and although he'd quit a few months later, he'd never gotten rid of the instruments.

Jasper took the first cigarette out of its packet and weighted it in his palm. He pressed it to the lips, thinking about poison, and lit it clumsily. He'd never smoked before, but he'd seen other people do it. Of course, he'd never expected that he would be on this side of the smoky veil. He inhaled and choked. Trying to smother the sound of his coughing so as not to awake his dad, he gulped, cringing as he felt the smoke drifting down his throat. He pulled the cigarette to his mouth once again and dragged. This time he was successful.

He smiled grimly. He would smoke the first one for himself, and the second one for Maggie.

* * *

When Henry returned home, sizzling with the discovery he'd made, he scaled the wall to his bedroom only to find that Jasper wasn't in his bed. Puzzled, he paced into the hall, but he could neither see nor hear his cousin. "Jasper?" he called in a loud whisper, unwilling to wake his uncle. Growing worried, he noticed the closed bathroom door with some relief. It diminished, however, when there was no answer to his soft knock. "Jasper?" he repeated with more volume. Silence. Trying not to panic, he reached up and his fingers scrabbled across the top of the doorjamb until they found the simple key. The door unlocked with a quiet click that reverberated ominously in the hush of the house. He swung open the door to encounter Jasper, fast asleep, slouched over against the wall holding an empty cigarette pack and an unlit cigarette.

Henry knelt in front of him and carefully removed the cigarette and the pack from his grasp and tossed them in the trashcan, along with the lighter he'd picked up from the floor. Holding his breath against the rancid tang of the smoke, he lifted Jasper off the floor and carried him back into his room, setting him gently upon his bed.

* * *

He sat awake for the next few hours, anxiously waiting for him to wake up. He supposed he could have fallen asleep himself- after all, he was very tired- but he wanted to be there when Jasper awoke, and he had a feeling that he'd be stirring awake long before his alarm went off.

Henry was right- Jasper's eyelids were fluttering. He coughed and immediately seized up against the rawness of his throat. "Are you okay?" Henry asked, leaning forward. Jasper nodded weakly, remembering the night's events.

"Oh, God…" he choked out.

"I brought you some water," said Henry, holding out a clean glass of water. He took it gratefully, pressing it to his dry lips and letting its coolness drip onto his tongue. He shivered, drawing his sheet around himself. Though he was bursting with the news, Henry didn't dare tell Jasper about what he'd found in Maggie's coffin. Instead he said, "You need to believe she's still out there."

"No," Jasper said, looking up. "What if you're wrong?"

"I don't want you to believe me because I'm right," Henry clarified. "I want you to believe me because if you don't, you're losing all faith, everything. Without faith, you destroy yourself."

"Buddha?"

"Me, actually." Suddenly, they were both standing, arms wrapped around each other, somehow communicating everything that needed to be said in that embrace. "Why are you hitting me?"

"In America," Jasper explained, "it's customary for guys to thump each other on the back when hugging."

"Well in Lesotho, it's customary for people to actually hug people," replied Henry, hugging him properly.

* * *

**A/N: Song: "Deathbed" by Relient K. **

**My parents are awesome. While writing this, I asked them a long list of questions about how to smoke a cigarette, and they didn't freak out or anything!**

**Just to clarify, I am in no way trying to glorify smoking. In fact, if you listen to that song, you can easily derive my message. **


	8. Faking a Funeral

**A/N: Alright, I promise this will be the last mention of Jasper's little smoking incident. Also, Christy: This is a Jasper/Maggie story. **

**

* * *

**After a couple hours of nightmare-infested sleep each, Henry and Jasper slumped into the Smart, dressed all in black. "It was a fake?" Jasper said, continuing the conversation they'd been having inside. He nodded, watching Jasper's hands carefully to make sure they didn't slip from the steering wheel. It was the first time since he'd driven since Maggie had-

Had what? Henry had been rolling that question around and around in his head all night. She was alive- of that he was certain- but she could be in danger. And had she faked her own death, or had someone else done it? Why?

"Yeah," said Henry as they left the neighborhood. "Definitely a fake." Something like a shudder melted through Jasper. "Listen," he said, realizing, "we can stop for patches or… gum or something…"

"No, no," said Jasper, waving away his concern. "I'll be okay."

"Really?" he said apprehensively. "Nicotine is a very addictive drug. And you don't have the best self-control." They'd parked outside the cemetery. Jasper yanked the keys out of the ignition and turned to Henry.

"Maybe not," he admitted, "but this isn't about self-control. This isn't even about cigarettes." His eyes were misty, but his jaw was set. "This is about Maggie."

* * *

"What about Maggie, exactly?" asked Henry, following him through the dewy grass.

"Oh, you know, her PSAT score," he said, rolling his eyes. "What else about Maggie would this be about?"

"That's not what I meant," he said, stopping him. "I mean what do you believe?"

"I believe… that Jurassic Park could happen," said Jasper, trying to step around him.

"Okay, I'm going to need something other than sarcasm," he said. Jasper looked up at him, daring to hope for the first time.

"She's alive."

"Good," said Henry, smiling. "Now we have to go pretend she's not."

* * *

People try too hard to make funerals seem like happy events, thought Jasper as he surveyed the bunches of colorful flowers all around. The flowers should be wilted and bent as if in mourning. The vibrant blossoms were mocking Maggie's death. _No_. He was arguing a different point now, and the switch was difficult to comprehend. Maggie was alive. Somewhere, somehow, she was alive.

The casket sparkled dully in the fluorescent lighting like the glinting blank stare of a corpse. A long line of morose people was trailing past it, each of them looking into the casket sadly. Henry and Jasper slipped onto the end of the line as it inched forward.

"It's not her," Henry reminded him. "Just remember that, it's not her." Jasper nodded, unable to speak, unsure of whether he was about to explode or evaporate. Cold sweat beaded on the nape of his neck, but he didn't raise his hand to wipe away the wetness there or the few tears that had gathered in the creases of his eyes.

Henry was in front of Jasper, so he reached the casket first. He looked down at the pale face of the decoy stoically. Before he moved forward, he turned back and whispered, "Jasper, don't look down."

"What?"

"Just keep walking, don't look." Henry walked away, leaving Jasper alone in front of the coffin. He started forward, obeying Henry and looking away. However, though he'd fully intended to take his cousin's advice, he found he couldn't resist. He looked down.

There she was, flawless and perfect and beautiful. And dead.

His breaths came too fast, wheezing in and out of him manically. He felt dizzy, and black spots began to blink into his vision. He felt a strong hand take his shoulder and lead him towards a chair in a corner. He turned to see who was guiding him, but everything was blurred and confusing, like a scattered puzzle.

"I told you not to look," scolded Henry, sitting him in the chair.

"You," gasped Jasper, "said she was… alive." His breathing hadn't slowed, but he could see clearly. "You… said… that it wasn't… that that wasn't her!"

"It's not," said Henry. "It's some kind of mannequin." Jasper shook his head, his pulse thumping feverishly.

"Looks like her."

"It's not!" he persisted, growing exasperated. "That _thing _probably says 'Made in China' on the foot!" Jasper stared at him. "That's right, it's a _thing_. And I'm not talking about that philosophical stuff about how the body is just a shell, I mean it's an inanimate object that was never animate. It's made of rubber and plastic and glass that just happens to look like Maggie, which is why I told you to _not look down_!" During Henry's ranting, Jasper's heartbeat had finally calmed. "You don't really believe that she's alive, do you?"

"How can I?" he sighed, staring at his hands.

"This will end well," said Henry.

"How can you be so sure?" The traces of doubt were floating between them, threatening to leap forward and strangle them.

"It just has to."

* * *

On their way home, Jasper's iPod chimed. "Can you see what that is?" he asked Henry. He picked up the device and glanced at the screen.

"It says that somebody with the initials J-A-S beat your high score for Gorilla Chord 3," said Henry. "What's Gorilla Chord 3?"

"It's an app," he replied. "And I have no idea how someone beat me, I've had that high score for like two years." Henry raised his eyebrows. "Never mind. That's the opposite of important right now."

"Agreed," said Henry, sliding the iPod back into the cup holder. "We need a plan."

"A plan?"

"For rescuing Maggie," said Henry slowly, as if he were speaking to a four-year-old.

"Can't we just call the police?" begged Jasper. "For once?"

"No," said Henry. "Something big is going on. Maggie didn't even tell her parents that she was still alive. I don't think we can trust the police."

"Well, how are we supposed to figure this out alone?" he said. "We don't even have Maggie to help us."

"She _is _helping us," reminded Henry. "We never would have realized that she wasn't dead if she hadn't hidden it in her letter."

"Okay," he sighed, pulling into their driveway. "Lunch?"

"Soup?"

"We don't have soup."

"We should get soup."

"Fine, we'll go get soup."

"Good."

* * *

That night, just as Jasper was beginning to drift off the sleep, his iPod chimed again. He rolled over irritably, rubbing his eyes, and lifted it off his nightstand. It was another alert from Gorilla Chord 3, letting him know that someone with initials P-E-R had also beaten his high score. Something was stirring in his mind, something important, but he was too tired to recognize what it was. Deciding to figure it out tomorrow, he set the iPod back down and rolled over, his eyes drifting closed once again.

* * *

**A/N: Never used an Apple product in my life, so any and all reviews about, "But iPods can't do that!" shall be answered, "Well, this is a magic iPod."**


	9. Trail of Breadcrumbs

Henry was already downstairs, halfway through breakfast when Jasper woke up. Instead of getting out of bed and getting dressed, he just laid there, thinking. There were the same thoughts that were always there- 'Maggie's gone,' 'Henry's crazy,' 'I'm sad,'- and then there were new ones: 'Maggie's alive,' 'Someone put a dummy in her coffin,' 'How did two people beat my Gorilla Chord 3 score in one day?'

The last one he was currently pondering. Though it seemed like the least relevant idea, he found it extremely odd that days after Maggie's suicide was faked, his long-lived record score had been beaten twice. If she were here, she would have denounced it as random coincidence, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was something beyond that. Henry was always blabbering about intuition. If Jasper told him about this feeling, he'd probably agree with him.

Jasper, mentally cursing himself over the idiocy of it, snatched his iPod from the nightstand and tapped the screen, seeking the high score board to find out by how much he'd been bested. He tapped an icon on the lower left and scanned through to the high scores. The iPod clattered to the floor.

J-A-S. P-E-R.

JAS. PER.

JASPER.

"Henry!" he yelled, springing downstairs. "Henry!" He skidded to a stop when he reached the kitchen and saw that his dad was sitting at the table beside his cousin.

"Why the urgency?" his dad asked.

"Uh, well, I…" said Jasper, scratching his neck nervously. "I woke up and he wasn't in his hammock, so I thought that something had happened. But he's okay!" He offered a cheesy grin, sure that his father wasn't buying it.

He wasn't. "Henry is always awake and down here eating breakfast before you," he reminded him. "Every day."

"I guess I've just been a little forgetful ever since… Maggie's… death," he said solemnly, looking down. Bryan Bartlett's stern expression melted, and he sighed apologetically. "But Henry asked me to help him with his homework assignment this morning."

"I already finished that," said Henry, oblivious.

"No, the other one," continued Jasper, gritting his teeth in annoyance. Henry seemed to understand, and stood to put his breakfast dishes in the sink.

"Right," he said. "I do need help with that."

"What class is this homework for?" asked Jasper's dad suspiciously.

"Biology," they answered simultaneously.

"What's it about?"

"The human respiratory system," they said, again perfectly in sync. He waved them away, apparently deciding that they were telling the truth.

"Dude, that was so lucky!" whispered Jasper when they reached the stairs.

"There must be some code of morality in which it's somehow wrong to use Maggie as an excuse," he said, ignoring Jasper.

"Not mine," he said with determination, scrambling to the second floor. "You've got to see what I found!"

"Do you ever get the feeling that we're becoming more and more like each other the more we live together?" frowned Henry, following Jasper into their room.

"Yes, it's terrifying," he replied, not really paying attention. He reached under his bed where he'd dropped the iPod, brushing away dust bunnies and bits of trash that had collected there over the years and pulled out the discarded device. He tapped it and spun it around to show Henry.

"That's your name!" Henry exclaimed, taking it and examining the screen closely.

"Seriously?" said Jasper in his most mocking tone.

"So someone's trying to contact you through Monkey Chord 3," concluded Henry.

"Gorilla," he corrected. "And Henry…"

"What?" He looked up from the luminous face of the iPod. Jasper chewed his lip, still unaccustomed to his newfound belief.

"I think it's Maggie."

* * *

Jasper's theory glowed within him like a small fire, but it wasn't enough to convince him to dwell on the high scores. Dwelling, in his experience, always led to some kind of disappointment. He had the itching need to _move_, to do _something_, so he resorted to obsessive cleaning. He wasn't really much of a neat freak, and neither were the other two occupants of the house, so there was plenty of work to do. He started with the dishes, then moved onto scrubbing the countertops and reorganizing the pantry.

Though he was trying to avoid thinking, the possibility that Maggie was trying to reach him kept chewing on his brain, forcing him into contemplation. He found himself setting up strategies while he mopped, and even the roaring drone of the vacuum cleaner couldn't silence the ideas sprouting in his mind.

Hours later, he sagged back into his room and collapsed onto his bed. Henry seemed to be in the same position he'd been in that morning, still gazing at the iPod. "What do 'N' and 'W' stand for?" he asked.

"They're ratings for each level of the game," explained Jasper without looking up. " 'N' stands for 'nice' and 'W' stands for 'wicked'."

"No…" replied Henry slowly. Jasper rolled onto his side. "They stand for 'North' and 'West.'" He leapt up, flipping the iPod around to show Jasper. "These aren't just scores, they're coordinates!"

"No way," said Jasper, sitting up and snatching his iPod, his thumbs skidding across the screen as he searched Google Maps. "It's somewhere in Pennsylvania."

"That must be where Maggie is!" Henry nearly yelled. "Let's go!" He tugged on Jasper's elbow, but Jasper didn't move. Henry was always like this- impulsive, irrational, ready to run off to who-knows-where on a random impulse.

"Not now," he said.

"But she could be in danger," argued Henry.

"Trust me," said Jasper, "you have no idea how much I want to drive off to Pennsylvania right now, but this is the kind of situation where we have to be cautious. 'First learn, then protect,' remember?"

"Maggie's more important than some plant," he retorted. Jasper looked down.

"Maggie's more important than _everything_," he murmured, "which is why we have to be careful and do this the right way." He looked up at Henry, who still seemed upset, but at least resigned.

"Fine," he said, sinking back into his hammock. Jasper leaned back in his bed, shutting his eyes tiredly, and tried to resist the urge to race out of the house and follow this crazy trail until it led him to Maggie.

* * *

"Would you just look at the damn camera?" the man snapped, waving a cheap camera at Maggie. About half an hour ago he'd stalked into her barren cell, thrust a copy of _USA Today_ into her hands, and told her to say "Cheese!" (Which she exchanged for a word that most definitely would not be tolerated were this a school photographer before crumbling the newspaper and lobbing at him without giving him a chance to take the picture.) She was aggravated with this chamber and angry at her capturers, so she fought back the only way she could: by not cooperating. The risk of being beaten was almost worth the looks of exasperation on their faces.

"Nope," she said, popping her lips and holding the unfolded but still crinkled paper above her eyes. She peeked over the top to see the man with the camera huffing irritably, and nearly smiled. Nearly. "I'm locked in an underground prison with absolutely no means of escape and everybody thinks I'm dead," she said matter-of-factly. "I have no reason to do what you say. You have no leverage." She pulled the newspaper down to flash him a wide smile before pulling it back over her face.

"Leverage?" he said, his suddenly sly voice unsettling her. "What if I told you we had your boys Henry and Jasper?" She froze, her fingers trembling where they gripped the wearing newsprint.

"You have Henry and Jasper?" she said, struggling to control her voice.

"Got 'em right back there," he said smugly. She didn't look up. She knew that they'd seen her write her letter. There was a possibility he was bluffing, and she knew how to test it.

"You took the kids I babysit?" she yelped theatrically. "They're only six years old!"

"Guess you won't be getting that extra two dollars an hour," he snickered. She sighed, ripping the front page of the newspaper in half.

"Told you you had no leverage," she sang, tossing the paper behind her.

"Maurice!" he yelled angrily. "Get in here!" A beefy, red-faced man strode in brandishing a gun and a fresh copy of _USA Today_. He tossed the paper to her and stalked behind her to press the gun to her back. It dug in between her shoulder blades uncomfortably.

"So what?" she said, trying to disguise the shaking in her voice. "Everyone thinks I'm already dead." _Everyone except Henry and Jasper, if I can count on Henry's curiosity. _

"Nobody wants to die, Winnock," the man standing in front of her said. "This picture is your one chance out of here." As much as she hated it, he was right. So, she stopped fighting, held the paper up, and tried to look hopeful for her parents. "One more," he said. "She likes to keep a picture for herself." He was once again referencing the mysterious woman who seemed to be in charge of them. He held up the camera, counting down from three to one. Just before the flash went off, she stuck up her middle finger. The camera clicked.

* * *

**A/N: For this chapter, I kept trying to think of what two guys would be doing on a Sunday (because I didn't want them to just be sitting around solving a mystery), and all I could think of was that they'd go see the Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia. Haha, nobody will get that…**


	10. Mad Tea Party

Jasper's index finger skimmed the iPod screen, swiping furiously to gain more points. Too late- the screen flashed in blinking letters, "GAME OVER," and he tossed the iPod onto the table where he and Henry were eating lunch. "You've been playing that thing all day," he pointed out. "You should eat before the bell rings."

"Not hungry," he grunted, pushing the Styrofoam tray away from him. Henry eyed him carefully before scooping up his mashed potatoes and adding them to his own tray.

"Why are you so obsessed with that game?"

"I'm trying to beat her high score," he mumbled, sliding his iPod back in front of him. Henry shook his head.

"Seriously?"

"Not like that," Jasper explained, beginning a new game. "I want to let her know that we're looking for her."

"But we're not looking for her," Henry pointed out. He'd argued again that morning that they skip school and drive to Pennsylvania, but Jasper had again insisted that they gather more information before leaving.

"We should check her house again," said Jasper.

"We've already searched it," he groaned. "We're not doing anything productive if we just go in circles."

"Our search was cut short last time," said Jasper, "and we didn't know what we were looking for. I know _I _was looking for proof that she was really dead, but now that I believe you maybe I'll notice- Oh, come on!" He flung the iPod back onto the tabletop.

"Give me that," Henry sighed, taking the iPod and tapping the screen. Jasper stifled a laugh; Henry had trouble using the television remote, there was no way he could even begin to understand Gorilla Chord 3.

"I wish Maggie were here," Jasper commented quietly, staring at her empty seat. "She'd know what to do."

"If Maggie were here, why would we need her help to find her?" said Henry without looking up.

"I don't… never mind," he griped in response, drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. "I just miss her." That was an understatement. He felt like there was a glaring hole in his life. Her absence screamed at him. He drummed his fingers faster, trying to drone out the sound of her silence.

" 'M-A-G'?" asked Henry.

"What?"

"For the initials," he explained, holding out the iPod to him to show the high score. " 'M-A-G' then 'G-I-E'?"

"How did you…" he trailed off, doubting his fragile understanding of the world. Everything he'd ever accepted as permanent had fallen out from beneath him, leaving him struggling to find a grip. "Yeah. 'M-A-G'."

* * *

Henry beat his first high score on their way to Maggie's house that afternoon. " 'G-I-E'?" he said.

" 'G-I-E'," Jasper confirmed from the driver's seat, not even bothering to wonder how his technologically-impaired cousin had managed to beat the score he'd upheld for almost two years- and he'd always thought of himself as tech savvy. "Are we just going to walk in like we did last time?" he asked, pulling into Maggie's driveway.

"Yeah," said Henry. "Colonel Winnock's out."

"What, are you stalking him?" Jasper said half-heartedly, swinging the car door shut.

"No," said Henry. "His car's not here. It's a simple matter of deductive-"

"Stop talking."

"Why? Did you hear something?" Henry whispered.

"No, you're just really annoying." Henry rolled his eyes and followed Jasper to the door. As he'd done the last time, he took the old key and was about to slide it into the lock when the door swung open.

Standing in the threshold was Maggie's mother. "Hello, boys," she said softly. The few times they'd met her, she'd rarely spoken, and Maggie rarely spoke of her. In fact, when Henry had first met Maggie, he'd assumed that her mother was somehow out of the picture. Jasper noticed that the house key Henry had held was nowhere to be seen.

"Hi, Mrs. Winnock," said Henry politely. Jasper wondered how they were going to lie their way out this time. Jasper mentally crossed his fingers, hoping to avoid another "Christopher O'learystein" fiasco. "Is Maggie home?" He was smiling, acting like his usual self. Jasper stared at him incredulously, but he wasn't looking.

"Henry…" said Jasper. Henry shot him a darting glance, and suddenly Jasper understood… or at least he hoped he did. "I'm sorry," he said to Mrs. Winnock, "I told him not to come here. Henry, Maggie died. Remember?" His face fell.

"Right," he said, his voice barely audible. "Sorry." He turned to walk back to the car, his shoulders sagging.

"He forgets sometimes," Jasper said in a low tone. Mrs. Winnock nodded thoughtfully.

"Poor boy," she sighed. "She loved you, you know." He blinked, wondering why he was suddenly obsessing over whether she meant the plural or singular form of the word "you". "Your cousin's a very good actor," she remarked.

"Uh… what?"

"For a second I almost thought he actually didn't know," she continued. Her voice had morphed from quiet and sad to slightly amused.

"Didn't know what?" Jasper said, panicking.

"That my daughter is still alive," she explained.

"Maggie's alive?" he gasped. It sounded fake even to his own ears.

"You, on the other hand, could probably use some theatrical advice from him," she mused.

"How did you know?"

"You were trying to get into the house," she explained. "And your eyes are more determined than depressed." Jasper stared at her.

"Um, no, I meant how did you know that she's alive?" He felt as if he were caught in some strange dream, conversing with this cryptic woman.

"Ransom note," she said simply, holding up a scrap of paper.

"Oh my God." She held it out for him to examine, and he tried to read it to himself as quickly as possible. She tucked it back into her pocket too soon, though, and all he could gather was that it was addressed to "Agent Winnock," and something about Maggie dying for real at midnight tomorrow. "Agent Winnock?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of the Washington DC branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," she rolled off. He was beginning to understand where Maggie had acquired many of her personality traits.

"You work for the FBI?" he said, surprised, sure that this was the reason Maggie didn't speak about her mom often. He could just imagine himself slipping up: _"So, my mom was eavesdropping on this conference in the Middle East this weekend. I mean… scrapbooking." _She nodded.

"I always knew they'd find me one day," she sighed vaguely. "You two should come in." She disappeared within the house. Still feeling as if he were trapped in a confusing parallel universe, Jasper turned to see Henry still standing by the car.

"Henry, come on!" he called.

"What?"

"_She knows_," he said in a loud whisper, worrying about the neighbors overhearing. Henry, shocked, hurried towards the door. Jasper gave him a brief summary of his baffling conversation as they followed Mrs. Winnock into the house.

"Coffee?" she said from the kitchen. Henry declined politely, and Jasper was about to do the same when he realized that at that moment, there was virtually nothing he wanted more.

"Yes, please," he murmured, sitting with Henry in the living room. Moments later, Mrs. Winnock appeared with two steaming mugs of coffee. She handed one to Jasper and set the other on a side table near her.

"So what would you like to know?" she said. She was _smiling_, as if this were some social get-together. Jasper wondered briefly if he'd been wrong, if the reason Maggie hadn't told them much about her mother was that she was a tad insane.

He wanted to say, "Everything," but, feeling that would be too indistinct, said, "Why did they take Maggie?"

"Years ago," she said, launching into what Jasper hoped was a relevant story, "there was a serious series of abductions up in the New England area- this was when we still lived there- and I followed the trail to a gang of money-crazy kidnappers. They were all locked up- permanently- but the one that I suspected was the real leader, who somehow got off free." Jasper blinked, idly wondering how many surprises he'd be forced to endure today.

"But why did they fake her death?" said Henry, sitting forward.

"They explained in the note that they wanted me and my husband to understand exactly what it felt to lose her so that… so that we'd be able to make 'an informed decision'," she said in a clipped tone, nearly getting choked by emotion. "I assume they made it look like a suicide so that nobody else would be associated, though why they would care I'm not sure."

"You should call the police," said Jasper.

"I can't trust the police," she whispered. "I can't trust anyone. I probably shouldn't have trusted you." Jasper mentally rolled his eyes. "They're watching. They got into the house once." _Twice_, Jasper thought but didn't say. "I need to go to them myself."

"No!" said Henry. "Never give them what they want."

"Henry, this isn't a movie," said Jasper exasperatedly.

"We'll get her back," promised Henry, ignoring his cousin. "We can find her."

"That's sweet of you," she admitted, "but you're just kids. Even if I did let you go, I'd have to come with you."

"You can't," said Henry, shaking his head. "Because they're after you. We can get her back. We _will_." Without Jasper noticing it, Henry had walked across the room and pulled him to his feet. "We'll get her back, Mrs. Winnock!" he called over his shoulder, walking out the door, followed by a slightly bemused Jasper. _Was everybody going crazy today?_

"Mrs. Winnock, I-" He paused, unsure of what to say next. He wanted to apologize, but he wasn't quite sure what for. "What was his name? The leader that got away?"

"Her," she corrected. "Theresa Carter."

* * *

Maggie rocked back and forth, curled up in a ball on her cot. She was battling tears, as she had been since she first came to this hellish place. She heard the door open and close, but didn't look up. "Hello, Maggie." The voice was female, which surprised her. She glanced up to see an imposing woman wearing a cold smile. "You haven't met me yet, but I'm sure you've heard of me." She reminded Maggie of a shark, concise and brutal. "I'm Theresa Carter."

* * *

**A/N: More people than expected actually understood the joke at the end of the last chapter, but for those who didn't, I believe somebody posted a link in a review. Also, I really need song ideas for the fic mix! Please review with any and all ideas. (Other than Lazy Sunday!)**


	11. Drive Away

Memories were rushing through Maggie in the calculated way they often did, and not just the brief and vague pronouns she'd heard from the men who'd taken her picture. She recognized the woman's name from a paper she'd seen at home, a visit to her mother's office, an overheard conversation. This was the woman that her mother had been following, that had held a grudge against her. Maggie suddenly understood why she'd been taken, and she almost shivered. She'd been sort of hoping it was just a band of maniacs after money who'd stolen her by random chance. Because they'd obviously planned this out, and because there was something much bigger going on than a relatively simple ransom case, Maggie started to fear she wouldn't be getting out alive. Still, she wouldn't show it. She could be strong. She thought of Jasper- it was the sort of thing he would do, annoy his captor for the sake of survival.

"The name _does _sound familiar," she said, mockingly rubbing her chin as if she were thinking very hard. "Weren't you in that movie with Robert Pattinson?" Theresa sneered irritably.

"You can make your little jokes, but no matter how sarcastic you get you're still a prisoner," she retorted. Maggie hated admitting to herself that she was right; it might be fun to torment them, but at the end of the day she was still at their mercy. It was only her belief that Jasper and Henry were looking for her that kept her from accepting defeat.

"I wasn't being sarcastic," she said. "You look like a vampire."

"I think that's you," said Theresa. "Little dead girl." Maggie cringed. She thought again of her friends, but this time she was hoping that they hadn't been too upset over her "suicide". She hoped desperately that they'd realized the truth quickly.

"Nobody will believe that I really did that," she pointed out, trying to believe herself. "I'm a very happy person."

"No, Maggie," replied the older woman with a cruel smirk, "you're a very _perfect _person. Do you know what happens to perfect people?" Maggie didn't answer. "They crack. It happened to me, too."

"Oh, really?" said Maggie with a fake expression of mild surprise. "You committed suicide?"

"Maggie-"

"Please stop calling me that," she said suddenly.

"What?" asked Theresa. "I thought you preferred 'Maggie'."

"I do," she said. "With friends. _You_, on the other hand, can call me 'Miss WInnock' or _ma'am_." She regretted her words at once; Theresa was immediately in front of her, staring menacingly forward. Her breath smelled like fish, accentuating Maggie's comparison between her and a shark.

"You'd better watch your tongue, _Maggie_," she hissed. "Or you'll meet the same end your mother does." Without another word, Theresa left the room, leaving Maggie alone. She wrapped her arms around her knees.

"Mom…"

* * *

"Flashlights?" said Henry.

"Check," replied Jasper, tossing two red flashlights into a black duffel bag. They'd finally gotten away from dinner, which had been peppered with concerned questions from Jasper's father.

"GSP?" said Henry.

"GPS," corrected Jasper. "And check." He'd already entered the coordinates Maggie had given them.

"Escape plan?" said Henry, glancing at Jasper. He shook his head.

"Uncheck." They still weren't sure how to get out of the house and into the Smart without his dad noticing. "We could always wait until he's asleep."

"We don't have time to wait," responded Henry, peering out the window as if he expected midnight tomorrow to have arrived without them realizing it.

"Then we should tell him we're going someplace else," suggested Jasper. "But where?"

"You're supposed to know this kind of stuff," said Henry. "Where would two sixteen-year-olds be going after six on a Monday night?"

"I don't know… the library?"

"Doesn't it close at five?" asked Henry. He nodded slowly.

"But Dad probably doesn't know that," he realized.

"So, okay, we'll tell him we're going to the library," said Henry, zipping up the duffel bag. "And it's good, because I have a book I need to return."

"Okay, but you know we're not actually going?" Jasper reminded him.

"Right, right." He shook his head like he was trying to wake himself up. "I'm kind of distracted."

"I'm kind of distressed." He stood up, slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, and left the room. Henry turned off the light as he followed him out, taking one last look around the room.

* * *

Minutes later, they were speeding along the road in Jasper's car as night fell around them. Jasper kept shifting in his seat, tapping his sweaty fingers against the steering wheel. "Are you alright?" said Henry worriedly.

"Yeah, fine," he replied. "It's just that I'm pretty nervous already, and I get nervous when I drive without music."

"Well, put the radio on," said Henry. "I don't mind." Jasper leaned forward and flipped on the radio. Something by Korn blared through the speakers. Henry clapped his hands over his ears.

"Sorry," said Jasper, sliding the tuner forward until he found something that they both agreed on. It was an appropriate song for the moment: "The Distance," by Cake. The speedometer inched forward as he listened intently to the mechanical voice on the GPS.

_He's going the distance  
He's going for speed  
She's all alone, all alone, all alone, in a time of need._

* * *

**A/N: Those of you with Facebook, I made a quiz for "Which Unnatural History Character Are You?"**


	12. Escape a State of Mind

**A/N: My mom says that if I didn't make an 88 or above on my Global Studies test today, she will deactivate my fanfiction account, perhaps forever. On that happy note, let's begin the chapter. **

Maggie didn't sleep anymore. Maybe it was out of worry, maybe because she knew that at any random moment during the night one of her guards might storm in just to jeer at her. Whatever the reason, the last time she'd slept had been a two-hour nap yesterday. Now it was nearing one in the morning, and she hadn't yet been bothered, so she had decided that it might be a good idea to start formulating an escape plan.

For almost an hour, she'd been wandering around the cramped room, inspecting every detail of it, but from the start she'd known it was useless. She'd already picked over every element of the prison, from the tiny barred window to the impenetrable door.

There was a soft knock, and at first she thought it was coming from the door.

Of course, if it was coming from the door, it could only be one person, the only one who cared enough to ask permission rather than barging in. Drew, who, while he was too selfish to let her free, had at least been kind to her. He was the one who'd retrieved her iPod for her (of course, without knowing that the apps would still work despite the nonexistent Internet access in the cell). He'd once told her that he didn't approve of the abduction of children. Working with Theresa, he'd often assisted in the taking of spouses, girlfriends, fiancés, parents, but never the sons or daughters of targets. Though she'd never asked, she assumed that he'd had some sort of traumatic experience; perhaps he'd been taken away from his parents, or lost a child to kidnappers.

Drew would never come at this time of night, though, and the sound was coming from the other side of the room. She spun around to face the window, and her breath caught in her throat. Looking down at her through the iron bars, his eyebrows scrunched in concern, Jasper was calling her name. His name rushed out of her mouth in a startled exhalation, and she sprinted to the window. It was a few feet above her head, so she had to stand back and look up. "You came!"

"Of course," he said. The cell was below ground, and the window was only a couple inches off the ground, so he had to kneel in the wet grass and bend his neck almost in half to see through it, but he didn't care. He was looking at her, actually looking at her, alive and intact. For what seemed like forever he'd been empty, floating without anything attaching him to earth. He'd felt like a Jack-o-Lantern, everything within him scooped out and an awful grimace carved into his face. But now, seeing her, hearing her voice, he felt as if everything was connecting again, everything in his life that had gone wrong, even before she'd disappeared, was suddenly righted. He could no longer deny that she was really there. "We're going to get you out of there," he promised. He glanced over his shoulder. "Henry, do you know any ways to break iron bars?"

Henry's face suddenly appeared in the window beside Jasper's. "I don't," he replied.

"Henry!" sang Maggie. He looked down, smiling.

"Maggie, are you okay?" She nodded. Jasper, meanwhile, was fiddling with the bars.

"Ouch!" He looked up apologetically. "We'll find some other way to get you out."

"Be careful!" she warned as Henry stood up.

"Maggie," said Jasper. "It's Henry. We know no caution."

"Please be careful?" she tried, but he shook his head, almost smiling.

"We're getting you out of there," he repeated. He started to stand up. For just a moment, he stopped and looked back, as if there were something else he wanted to say. Their eyes connected, he opened his mouth, and then left without another word.

* * *

Seeing Henry again had reminded Maggie of another way to search for an escape route. She'd realized that, despite the weather outside, the temperature in the room never fluctuated. That had to mean that there was some sort of heating or ventilation system in the cell. She searched the ceiling, but there was nothing that looked like a vent. Closing her eyes and taking a deep calming breath, she began to step carefully around the room, wishing belatedly that she'd ever asked Henry how to meditate.

After several patient minutes, she felt it- a small brush of air coming from directly above her. She looked up to see a square patch of slightly discolored paint- a hidden vent. Now that she knew where it was, she could pick out the thin grooves and the four small screws holding it in place. She needed something metal to unscrew them and detach the panel. She already knew that nothing in the room could help her, so she turned her attention to her clothing: jeans, sneakers, and a simple blouse. Nothing.

She was about to give up and wait for Jasper and Henry when she remembered something: She'd once seen a talk show in which a guest described ways to survive in the wilderness using everyday objects. One of them was a bra.

Feeling like MacGyver, she slipped out of her bra and picked it apart with her fingernails, extracting the wire. After a few moments, she removed the panel successfully and set it on the floor beside her. She was preparing herself to jump and grip the sides of the gaping vent when the door swung open.

She reacted immediately, spinning around and kicking out, still half-ready to jump. Henry caught her foot, keeping her from losing his balance. He and Jasper were standing in the doorway.

"How did you get in here?" she gasped, running towards them.

"Maggie," said Jasper again, "it's Henry." She was about to laugh when sudden, pounding footsteps echoed outside the cell. Henry ran towards her, but it was too late. Theresa Carter appeared in the doorway, her expression somehow simultaneously gleeful and anguished. In an instant, she had her arm wrapped around Jasper and a pistol pressed to his neck. "Don't move!" she commanded. Maggie choked back a sob. Henry was bristling beside her- she wondered if he had a plan. She didn't.

Despite the terrorizing feeling of the cold metal pressed against his skin, Jasper didn't feel afraid, or even upset. He had a clear view of Maggie, and though she looked terrified, weak, and thin, she was alive, beautiful and alive, and he wondered why he'd ever believed that someone as brilliant and amazing as Maggie Winnock could commit suicide.

But it would be suicide for her to stay here. He could hear more footsteps in the hallway. _Everybody had to die someday. Might as well be for her. _He spared one last, wistful look at her before he opened his mouth to save her, and to, as Henry had said, destroy himself. She would die if she didn't leave, but she wouldn't leave without him. But, perhaps she would leave him behind, willingly, with a settled conscious, if she was convinced that he hated her. He needed to tick her off. Fortunately, that was something Jasper was very good at.

"I can't believe you dragged me out here, Henry!" he yelled. "I don't even care about… her. You pulled me out here for _nothing_ and now I'm going to die." He took a shaky breath. "When I don't even care." He tried to lie, but he knew that what Mrs. Winnock had said was true: he wasn't a good actor. He feared the truth was leaking through his cruel words. He could see it in her eyes as she opened her mouth.

"Jasper, I-"

_BANG._


	13. Things Get Heavy

Maggie was frozen, fixated on the scene as an icy horror overtook her. Suddenly, Jasper wasn't in Theresa's arms anymore, and there was blood, blood drenching the concrete floor. His name was pounding in her head, more an emotion than a word. She opened her mouth to scream, but felt a hand cover it up, making her feel more like a caged animal than the past few days, trapped in this cell, had. The hand kept her as silent as she'd been when Jasper had asked her out. The resemblance brought her shaky breaths too fast. She looked to her left, expecting to see Henry restraining her from the only person who'd ever made her feel vulnerable, but no, it was _him_, it was Jasper. Only then did she notice where all the blood was coming from and the grim figure in the doorway.

"Drew!" she cried, slipping Jasper hand off of her mouth. He clung to her shoulder.

"Maggie, you need to get out of here," he said quickly. "She's not quite dead." He was right. Already the woman on the floor was stirring.

"Thank-you," said Maggie.

"Just go!" Henry and Jasper lifted her up into the vent as two guards appeared behind Drew. One surveillance of the room revealed to them his betrayal. Jasper clambered up into the vent and tried to pull her away, but she was transfixed, staring at the conflict below as the men converged on Drew. Henry had leapt skillfully into the vent when the petrifying _crack _sounded, and Drew's vacant expression sunk into the growing crimson carpet.

* * *

"He saved us," sobbed Maggie once they'd reached the end of the vent and escaped into the damp grass, "and now he's dead."

"Maggie," said Jasper in what he hoped was a comforting tone, "we're safe." He still had an arm around her, and he was wondering if he ever intended on letting her go.

"I wouldn't be so sure," said Henry, ushering them towards the Smart. "I can't rest easy until we're far away from these guys."

"Me neither," she agreed.

Maggie was wrong. She fell asleep against Jasper almost the second Henry started driving. Jasper stroked her hair, unaware that he was darkening it with tears. For what seemed like his entire life he'd been racing towards this moment, chasing after the world. Now that he was holding it all, he felt strangely empty. Maybe it was just the lack of purpose- he could live with that. He didn't need purpose, he'd be content to watch her sleep forever.

"Are you okay?" asked Henry after a while. Jasper glanced down.

"She's asleep," he explained.

"I'm talking to you." Jasper looked up, confused.

"I'm fine," he said. "Bullet never hit me."

"Why are you crying?" Jasper quickly wiped his eyes.

"No reason," he lied, shrugging as if he were merely pacified that they'd rescued Maggie.

"You were hoping for a different reunion, weren't you?" guessed Henry in that perceptive way of his.

"What?" he responded, rolling his eyes. Unfortunately, he hadn't become a better actor in the past few minutes.

"After everything that's happened, you thought that when you finally saw her again, _something _would happen."

"Wow, _something_," said Jasper. "Way to be specific, Henry."

"Oh, you know what I mean," said Henry. He did. "You said it yourself, Jasper. This isn't a movie. A chorus of angels isn't going to fly down and serenade you as you and Maggie ride away on a white stallion and elope."

"What movies have you been watching?" Jasper muttered under his breath. Henry smirked.

"But you know what?" He looked over at them. "I bet I can tell you who she's dreaming about right now."

* * *

Henry stopped at the Bartlett household to give the driver's seat to his cousin. "I'll see you at home," he said, jogging towards the house to receive a worried and furious lecture from his uncle about lying and curfew and using the library as an excuse to drive to Pennsylvania to save one's best friend from a gang of psychotic kidnappers.

It was well past one in the morning, and Jasper was exhausted. He wasn't quite sure how he'd made the drive to Maggie's house, and theorized that a good leg of it must have been sleep-driving. Shaking himself, he stretched out of the car and hurried to unbuckle Maggie and shake her awake. She jumped, murmuring something about being trapped. "Maggie," he whispered, helping her to stand up, "you're home."

"Home?" she said blearily, looking around. She blinked, suddenly bringing her house into focus, and then she buried her face into Jasper's sweater, crying and laughing simultaneously. Moments later, light spilled across the lawn, filtering through the grass and making criss-cross patterns on the sidewalk, and Maggie's parents flew towards her. Jasper relinquished her reluctantly, stepping back to allow the Winnocks their moment of rejoice.

* * *

Later that night (or earlier that morning), after Maggie had showered and dressed in clean clothes, and she was curled up beneath her warm blankets, she and Jasper were discussing everything that had happened in each other's absence. He had refused to leave the house. Maggie's parents will still downstairs talking to the FBI and the police.

"What was it like?" said Maggie. "Thinking that I was dead?" She recalled how she'd felt the time he'd been cursed with a fatal disease and the time he'd been tied up in the museum with a slight shiver.

"It was like… remember when we read Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade?" he asked. She nodded. "It was like when Romeo found out that Juliet was dead. 'Then I defy you, stars!' and all that." Subconsciously, she put hand on his arm.

"Oh my God…" she whispered.

"I guess I should have known you were alive, then," said Jasper, smiling. It hurt his mouth out of rarity.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Juliet was alive," he explained.

"Well," laughed Maggie, "thanks for not drinking poison."

"Thanks for not stabbing yourself," he replied. She smiled, and then sighed.

"So is that it?" she asked, wrapping her arms around her knees and looking at him imploringly. "After everything we've been through, we're just going to go back to normal? Hanging out with Henry, wandering around the museum? We just compared ourselves to Romeo and Juliet!"

"Then maybe it's better if things stay the same," said Jasper, hating the idea of things staying the same. If she meant what he thought she meant, then he was turning his back on everything he'd been yearning for by denying it. "Do you want to end up like that?"

"Maybe things have changed in the past six-hundred years!" she retorted.

"I like that!" he said, almost shouting.

"Okay," she exhaled awkwardly.

"Okay," he repeated. Something like a quietly strangled laugh breathed out of him. "So…"

"Come here, Jasper," she said calmly. Confused, and though he'd never admit it, a little scared, he walked towards her, kneeling on the bed.

"Um…" She was much closer now. He felt her put a hand on each side of his face, pulling him towards her.

"Next time this whole suicide-kidnapping thing happens," she began, but he cut her off.

"Next time?" he choked.

"Oh, we're all danger magnets," she said. "Anyway, just remember… I'm not leaving you, at least not willingly. This is where I want to be." She looked down at their nearly-touching knees. "I guess I should have realized that earlier."

"I don't mind," he said breathlessly. She smiled, looking into his brown eyes. "So," he said, "awkward walk-away that leaves both of us embarrassed and unfulfilled or intense kiss that spawns a casual yet passionate relationship?"

"How about the second one?" she suggested, leaning forward.

"Excellent choice," he murmured in the moment before their lips met.

Sometimes it's hard to separate between romance and life. Sometimes when something monumental happens, it's hard to remember the events leading up to that event. Sometimes all you can recall is the sudden flutter in your stomach, not the normalcy of the moment before the world brightened. Memory and certainty are two different things, and there were times that Jasper Bartlett couldn't be sure whether he truly remembered his conversation with Maggie or whether he knew they'd had a conversation.

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N: And so ends my first finished multi-chapter UH fanfiction, and my highest reviewed unfinished (until today) non-script story. I'll miss this. It took me a little over a month to complete, which has to be a new record for me. I must admit, it's been something of an obsession, but now that it's over I can work on "Phantom" and my other UH stories, and then I'm sure my other fandoms have been missing me. Also, if you're one of those shippers who can condone non-Jaggie pairings, like myself, keep an eye out for my coming-soon Mamba/Haggie fic: "This Love Is More Than Tainted".**

**And now, the ficmix, for which there is a Youtube playlist. (Just look up "Juliet or Julius" on Youtube specific to playlists and click the first one.)**

**Faking My Own Suicide- Relient K  
**_I'm faking my own suicide because I know you love me, you just haven't realized._

**Hero- Regina Spektor  
**_I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved. _

**Deathbed-Relient K  
**_So right there you have it, that one filthy habit is what got me where I am today._

**Keep Holding On- Avril Lavigne  
**_Keep holding on, because you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through._

**R.I.P.- 3OH!3  
**_The grass isn't always as green, the house is burned to ashes, I'm no longer in between. _

**Hold On Hope- Guided By Voices  
**_Through each life of misery, everybody's got a hold on hope, it's the last thing that's holding me._

**The Distance- Cake  
**_She's hoping in time that her memories will fade, 'cause he's racing and pacing and plotting the course, he's fighting and biting and riding on his horse._

**The Reason- Hoobastank (Thanks to clawx2)  
**_I've found a reason to show a side of me you didn't know, a reason for all that I do, and the reason is you. _

**Little Motel- Modest Mouse  
**_Before then we had made a wish that we would be missed if one or another just did not exist. _

**Almost Lover- A Fine Frenzy  
**_I cannot go to the ocean, I cannot try the streets at night, I cannot wake up in the morning without you on my mind._

**Love Story- Taylor Swift  
**_Romeo, save me, I've been feeling so alone. I keep waiting for you but you never come. _

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, alerted, and read for inspiring me to keep writing and for all the great ideas. You've helped me survive the first few weeks of school. Also, thank-you Pandora, specifically Regina Spektor Radio for providing the background music for every time I worked on this story. ****  
**


	14. Author's Note

**Okay, nobody hates chapters devoted to Author's Notes more than me, but this is important and could not wait. The link to the Facebook page for a DVD release of Unnatural History is:**

**http: / / www. facebook. com / pages / DVD-Release-of-Unnatural-History-Season-One /183490668333917 # ! / pages / DVD-Release-of-Unnatural-History-Season-One / 183490668333917**

**(without spaces). Like it. It will make a difference. Even if you don't have a Facebook, set one up and like this page. **


End file.
